Rwanda plan 'worse than convicts sent to Australia'

The former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major has described Rishi Sunak's government as "unconservative" and "un-British" in the way it tried to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

- DAVID MADDOX

Speaking to the BBC's Amol Rajan, Sir John admitted that he had not made any public pronouncements for some time because he found little to like about the last Tory government under Rishi Sunak.

He said the Sunak government’s plans to fly asylum seekers to east Africa was worse than the 18th century deportations of convcts fo Australia.

And, in a devastating assessment of Brexit, he agreed with former Labour prime minister Sir Tony Blair that far from reducing immigration as promised by Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and others, it had in fact increased immigration and replaced Europeans with more people from other parts of the world.

The full interview, Amol Rajan Interviews: John Major, is on BBC Two at 7pm tonight and will be available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds from 6am the same day.

Addressing the controversial Rwanda scheme which cost the taxpayer £700 million but failed to see a single asylum seeker flown to the east African country, Sir John was scathing.

He said: “I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, and unconscionable and I thought that this is really not the way to treat people.”

The deportation scheme, which was first announced two years ago by then-prime minister Boris Johnson, was scrapped by Sir Keir Starmer in his first full day as prime minister in July.

“We used to transport people, nearly three hundred years ago, from our country. Felons, who at least have had a trial, and been found guilty of something, albeit that the trial might have been cursory,” he added.